The Revolution Will Not Be Televised by Gil Scott-Heron (1971)

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The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is a song and poem with the same name by Gil Scott-Heron and released in 1971. The song’s title was originally popular in the 1690s among the Black Power movements and used as a slogan in the United States. Scott-Heron’s song is as a response to the spoken-word piece "When the Revolution Comes" by The Last Poets. [1]

Gil Scott-Heron

Key Lyrics

Green Acres,’ ‘Beverly Hillbillies,’ and ‘Hooterville Junction’

Will no longer be so damn relevant

And women will not care if Dick finally got down with Jane

On ‘Search for Tomorrow’

Because black people will be in the street looking for a brighter day

The revolution will not be televised [2]

Black Empowerment

In a 1990s interview, Scott-Heron explains about the meaning of the song, as referred, the revolution cannot be seen on TV simply because it cannot be seen it at all :

"The first change that takes place is in your mind. You have to change your mind before you change the way you live and the way you move. The thing that’s going to change people is something that nobody will ever be able to capture on film. It’s just something that you see and you’ll think, “Oh I’m on the wrong page,” or “I’m on I’m on the right page but the wrong note. And I’ve got to get in sync with everyone else to find out what’s happening in this country.”

“I think that the Black Americans are the only real die-hard Americans here,” Scott-Heron goes on, “because we’re the only ones who’ve carried the process through the process…. We’re the ones who marched… we’re the ones who tried to go through the courts. Being born American didn’t seem to matter.” [3]

The song title goes after a Black Power slogan in the 1960s, the main subject of the song is the lack of media coverage of African-American communities. “A good poet feels what his community feels,” Scott-Heron explained. “He feels what the organism that he’s a part of feels. And one of the problems that our community was facing as a whole was the fact that we were being discriminated against and there was something that needed to be done.” [4]

References